How to Make Money With Amazon KDP in Nigeria: A Complete Guide
This complete guide about how to make money with Amazon KDP in Nigeria was updated November 2023
Back in April 2014, Amazon paid Kindle Select publishers a total of $1.2 million, and then $11 million in July 2015. In October 2023, the Kindle Select global fund was $51.6 million, and it will keep increasing.
My aim in writing this complete guide is to show you, step-by-step, how to make money with Amazon KDP in Nigeria, add your name to the Amazon KDP payroll and receive a portion of this global fund every month. If you would like that, keep reading.
Here are the main points:
- Amazon allows anyone (from any country) to publish books on the KDP website for free and earn dollars in book royalties monthly.
- The simple fact that you can create a book, publish it once, and receive monthly royalties in dollars on that book is the best example of a passive income system that I know.
- To receive your payment from Amazon, you need a US bank account, and you can easily get one from Payoneer or Geegpay.
- The two outputs of effective book research are profitable keywords and less competitive book categories.
- Don’t promote a book using Amazon ads if you have not gotten any organic sales or you may just be wasting your funds.
>>Click here to get a full video course
I have a little bonus for you at the end of this guide. Look out for it.
Content:
What is Amazon KDP?
Why Amazon KDP Is a Preferred Source of Passive Income
How Does Amazon KDP Pay Nigerians (and Other Africans)?
How to Make Money With Amazon KDP in Nigeria
Types of Books to Publish on Amazon KDP
How to Set Up an Amazon KDP Account in Nigeria
How to Research a Book for Amazon KDP
How to Get Content for Amazon KDP Books
How to Design a Book Cover for Amazon KDP Books
How to self-publish on Amazon KDP
How to Get Sales on Amazon KDP
How to Increase Sales on Amazon KDP and Earn 100% Revenue
What is Amazon KDP?
Amazon KDP is a website that belongs to Amazon where people can publish books for free. KDP is an acronym for “Kindle Direct Publishing.”
To help you understand why many people go into the Amazon KDP business, let’s look at a few important facts about Amazon.
Amazon is a multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, online advertising, cloud computing, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence.
Jeff Bezos founded Amazon on July 5, 1994. By the end of 2022, Amazon had a total revenue of 513.98 billion USD and employed about 1.6 million people worldwide. It’s safe to say that Amazon does not have any problem paying KDP business owners whatever they earn.
Let’s get back to what Amazon KDP is all about. In Amazon KDP, individuals like you and me publish books on the KDP website for free and receive 35–70% of the money Amazon generates from the book as monthly royalties.
See examples below:
There is a way to keep 100% of the money for yourself, and I will talk about it later in this article. Keep reading to find out.
Why Amazon KDP Is a Preferred Source of Passive Income
The simple fact that you can create a book, publish it once, and receive monthly royalties in dollars on that book is the best example of a passive income system.
Passive income systems usually require an upfront cost of time, money, or both. In the case of Amazon KDP, you only need to invest your time in two ways:
- Learn how to do it through articles, YouTube videos, paid courses, and mentorships.
- Practice what you are learning and improve as you go on.
Some people may prefer to hire freelancers to complete the various tasks involved, but I don’t recommend that for a beginner—for good reason. It’s not economical.
You should do it yourself first, make some money, and then outsource the tasks if you wish. That way, you will know what to expect from freelancers and maximize the return on your investment.
Did you know that a book you publish today can keep paying you for 20 years or more? That is what I call "passive" or "residual" income.
How Does Amazon KDP Pay Nigerians?
One major challenge that Nigerians have with making money online is how to receive the payment when the company is in the US or another country, especially European countries.
To receive your payment from Amazon, you need a US bank account, which you can easily get from Geegpay.
Initially, I recommended Payoneer but I later discovered that Payoneer exchange rates are absurdly low for Nigerians when compared with Geegpay.
Once you have your US bank account connected to your Amazon KDP account, Amazon will automatically send your money into the account on the 28th day of every month.
See a screenshot of my mentor’s March 2021 payment below ($4,100.30 in just one month):
Later in this article, I will show you, step-by-step, how to create a Payoneer account and get your US bank account details to receive monthly payments from Amazon.
How to Make Money With Amazon KDP In Nigeria
As I mentioned earlier, you make money by creating and publishing books on the Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing website.
There are five important steps to take:
- Do your research. This first step is the most important. How well you do this will determine if you struggle to make good money or not.
Research is crucial to knowing what people are looking to read on their devices or in hard books. I will explain how to do this in detail in the section about how to research a book for Amazon KDP.
The two outputs of good research are profitable keywords and less competitive categories to publish in. - Gather your content. The next thing is to put your content together using reputable sources like online articles, blog posts, books, and YouTube videos. You will find more details under the section about how to get content for Amazon KDP books.
- Paraphrase, edit, and run plagiarism checks. Now that you have your content, you must make sure to give it the “PEP treatment.” Use AI paraphrasing tools like QuillBot to achieve this.
Next, edit the content with QuillBot or similar platforms to correct grammar and spelling mistakes.
Finally, you have to run a plagiarism check on tools like QuillBot or Copyscape. - Design your book cover. The rule here is to model what the best sellers in your book category are doing and make yours better.
Use Canva or any other design tool you know. I recommend Canva because of how easy it is to understand and use it.
You will find details about how to design a book cover for Amazon KDP books. - Self-publish your book: This last step can be tricky, especially if you are publishing a summary book. If you don’t know and follow the self-publishing guidelines of Amazon, you risk getting your account banned. I have discussed this in detail under the subheading about how to self-publish on Amazon KDP
In short:
- Find profitable keywords
- Find 2–10 categories with low competition
- Form a title and subtitle from your keywords
- Create the book
- Design the cover
- Write a book description
- Publish and repeat the steps
Types of Books to Publish on Amazon KDP
There are two major types of books to publish on the Amazon KDP website.
- Content books: These are the books that have a good amount of text content inside them, like self-help books, biographies, and summaries.
- Low-content books: These are books with very low text content, like coloring books, puzzle books, and notebooks or journals.
For clarity, I will give more detail about three subtypes of content books that can make you some money fast.
- Summary books: As the name suggests, they are summaries of other books. For example, you can read Atomic Habits by James Clear, write a summary of it and publish your summary on Amazon.
Before you get excited, let me quickly mention that if you do this the wrong way, you risk getting your KDP account shut down by Amazon. If you plan to publish summary books, it is absolutely crucial to find someone who has been doing it for some time and model what they are doing. - Trend books: These are books about trending topics. It could be about a celebrity, a political figure, or a popular subject like COVID-19.
- Celebrity biographies: A good example of this will be the biographies of sports legends like Serena Williams, artists like Beyonce, or political figures like the late Queen Elizabeth II.
How to Set up Amazon KDP Account in Nigeria
As expected, setting up a tax-compliant account on the Amazon KDP website is the first step in your self-publishing business. How exactly will you do that?
First, you need to get a US bank account. After that, you will sign up for a new Amazon KDP account. Follow the step-by-step guide below to learn how to get a US bank account from Nigeria:
Step 1: Go to the GeegPay website and click "create account,” as seen below
Step 2: Select “I am a freelancer” and continue, as you can see below. If your country is different from Nigeria, please select your country before you proceed.
Step 3: Type your email address in the spaces (marked 1), as seen in the screenshot below and continue.
If you check the part I marked 2, you will already see that a USD account is part of what you will get as a freelancer (or someone doing business in his or her name).
Step 4: You will receive a 6-digit verification code in your email immediately. Log into your email and look for the email from Geegpay.
If you can’t find it in your inbox folder, check your spam folder. Once you find it, type the code into the space provided, as seen in the screenshot.
Step 5: You will see this screen where you will input your password, as seen below. Type in your password and continue.
Step 6: Finally, you will be asked to select what you want to use the account for, as you can see below.
Select “Receive payment from marketplaces like Upwork, Amazon KDP, etc”. Once you do that, you will see another form where you will complete your personal profile, as you can see below.
Ensure you fill all the spaces that are starred. Let your name be the same as the one on your ID (international passport or NIN). Save your input and proceed.
For your proof of address, you will need a bank statement and utility bill of three months old or less that is not passworded.
After you’re done with account creation, locate your USD account details and get them ready as you open your KDP account.
Next, set up your KDP account by following the steps below:
Step 1: Go to kdp.amazon.com and click “Join KDP,” as seen below
Step 2: Fill in your details and click “create your KDP account,” as seen below
You will receive a one-time password in your email inbox. Copy and paste it inside the box shown and click the yellow button that says “create your Amazon KDP account” as you can see in the screenshot below
Step 3: You will see a page that shows Kindle Direct Publishing terms and conditions. Click on “agree” as seen below
That will bring you to the home page of the KDP website, and you will see a statement at the top saying your account information is incomplete. Click on “update now” as seen below:
On the next page, you will be asked to verify your phone number for the 2-factor security setup. Do it the way we verified the email address, and then move on to the next page.
Step 4: Fill in your date of birth and address to see the “getting paid” section where you will connect your bank account as seen below:
Select United States in that box and fill in the bank details you will get from your Payoneer account. Click “Save” and you will see the page below:
Step 5: Click on the Tax section button to submit your tax information, as seen below:
If you have your tax ID, type it in the box. If not, click here to quickly get one if you are a Nigerian. Once you have submitted your tax ID, you will see another section about claiming a tax treaty, as it is below:
Select Nigeria and continue. Then, verify the information and click on “save and preview,” as you can see below:
Step 6: After you preview the form, click on “submit form,” as seen below:
Amazon will now keep 30% of whatever you earn from your books. Click on “exit interview” to finish, as seen below:
Now, you are ready to start publishing.
Go to your bookshelf page and click “create” when you are ready to self-publish a book.
How to Research a Book for Amazon KDP
I told you earlier that book research is the most important part of creating and publishing a book that can give you 4–6 figures in monthly book royalties. It is the difference between a struggling and a successful publisher.
Naturally, this means that knowing how to do your research requires being a diligent student–determined to make this work no matter what.
The strategies I show you here are best demonstrated in a video by someone who has results to prove the accuracy of his strategy. Am I right? Good.
I need you to understand that before we look at the strategies I will show you. I also mentioned that there are two outputs that your research should give you. If you don’t have them, your research is not complete.
They are keywords to use in your title, subtitle, and keyword selection for publishing, and less competitive categories where you can publish your book for a better chance of selling.
Let’s look at three strategies for conducting book research:
- Use keyword suggestions on the Amazon search box with keyword expander browser extensions. This technique is most common and it is effective for those who know what to look for. I wish I could go into more detail but it is better to watch how it is used in a video.
- Use websites like Google Trends and Yahoo News to find trending topics that you can write about, and use Google Search Console, YouTube, or both to find keywords that you can use.
- Model best-selling books by using keywords similar to the ones they use. For example, if you see a bestseller with the keyword like “how to lose weight after birth,” you can pitch your tent close to that book by choosing a keyword like “how to lose weight after birth first time mothers” or “how to lose weight after birth 6 months” if it is a keyword that people use to search.
How to Get Content for Amazon KDP Books
There are 2 major ways I get my content:
- Text content from quality websites that are not so popular
- Text content from transcript of YouTube videos
Beyond getting the content, you must have a way to make it original. There are 3 ways to do this without being guilty of plagiarism:
- Rewrite yourself
- Use paraphrasing tools like smallseotools or Quillbot and edit with grammar tools like Grammarly or Hemingway app.
- Outsource the task to freelancers on Fiverr or Upwork.
How to Design a Book Cover for Amazon KDP Books
This task is the second most important after book research. Good book research makes your book visible to those looking for what it offers. The book cover is what determines whether they buy your book or another.
There are various tools to use, but I use Canva to design my book covers and it is quite straightforward. Canva has lots of free elements and templates to use.
3 things to take into consideration for a captivating cover design include:
- Use bold letters for your title and author name
- Understand color combinations
- Use only images that are free to use for commercial purposes. Most images on sites like Pexels are free to use but you may want to check them again. There are some that are free to use on the condition that the user must attribute it to the creator. Know the conditions and adhere to them.
Ultimately, the best way to compete favorably is to study the designs of the best sellers in the category you want to publish your book in and improve on those designs in your own book.
How to Self-publish on Amazon KDP
This step happens in 3 phases, as seen on the Amazon KDP website:
- Book details: On this page, you will be asked to enter the book title, book subtitle (optional), book author (and contributors), 7 book keywords, 2 book keywords, and book description. Once you are done, you save and go to the next page.
- Book content: On this page, you will be asked to upload your book content in KPF (e-book), PDF (paperback/hardcover) or doc format.
- Book pricing: This is where you will pick the price of your book and select the market where you want to sell it. I suggest that you pick a price similar to the price of similar books.
How to Get Sales on Amazon KDP
Getting your book to sell on Amazon is a reward for doing proper book research and designing an attractive book cover that allows a target audience to know what your book is about within 3 seconds of seeing it.
There is nothing else you can do to make it sell other than that. Even if you promote the book using Amazon ads and you have not gotten any organic sales, you may just be wasting your funds.
How to Increase Sales on Amazon KDP and Earn 100% Revenue
This is where paid promotion comes into play. If your book has already generated about $500–$1,000 in sales organically, it is a good candidate for paid promotion.
You can also increase your sales by publishing the book on other platforms, like Barnes & Noble and Publish Drive. This will make your book available to a larger audience.
How can you legally avoid the 30% tax as a publisher from Nigeria?
The straight answer is to own a registered company in the US.
You can do that by registering at companiesmadesimple.com.
It is that simple. If you still need help getting it right, I recommend that you get the 90-day KPD course created by my mentor. Click here.
Wrapping Up
If you would prefer to have someone show you how to do all the tasks involved in creating and self-publishing a book on Amazon through easy-to-follow videos, I recommend getting a paid course created by one of Nigeria’s highest-paid Kindle publishers.
The course reveals a secret “Ride-the-Wave” system that many top earners in Nigeria are using to rake in 4-5 figures in dollars monthly from Amazon KDP. You will also learn how to legally avoid paying a 30% tax while living in Nigeria.
The creator of this course is Gbenga Akinwole, who has made over $400,000 USD in 9+ years of publishing. Click here to get details
Bonus: I recorded three short videos to introduce you to Amazon KDP and also reviewed the course I used to learn everything I shared with you in this complete guide. Click on the links below to watch.
Click here to watch video 1: All You Need To Know About Amazon KDP
Click here to watch video 2: 5 Steps To A Published Book And Tools To Use
Click here to watch video 3: Live Review of The Full Course by Gbenga Akinwole
Please note that you may decide to use other ways to receive your payments from Amazon KDP. The full course reveals other available options.
Someone is asking, “How quickly can you make money with Amazon KDP from Nigeria?” Click here to read my honest answer.
